Ivan Brunetti

Who is Ivan Brunetti?

Ivan Brunetti is an American cartoonist and comics scholar based in Chicago, Illinois.

Noted for combining blackly humorous taboo-laden subject matter with simplified and exaggerated cartoon drawing styles, Brunetti was strongly influenced by Charles M. Schulz and Peanuts. His best known comic work is his largely autobiographical series Schizo, of which four issues appeared between 1994 and 2006, the first 3 of which have been collected as Misery Loves Comedy. Schizo #4 received the 2006 Ignatz Award for Outstanding Comic of the Year.

He has also produced two collections of gag cartoons, Haw! and Hee!. He has worked as an illustrator, including cover designs for The New Yorker since 2007. His early work includes also the strip Misery Loves Comedy which he created for the University of Chicago newspaper The Maroon while a student there. The strip bears no relation to the 2007 Fantagraphics Books collection of the same name, which collects the first three issues of Schizo in their entirety, along with additional material contributed to various other publications during the same time period.

In 2005, Brunetti curated The Cartoonist's Eye, an exhibit of 75 artists' work, for the A+D Gallery of Columbia College Chicago. He is also the editor of An Anthology of Graphic Fiction, Cartoons, and True Stories. The second and final volume of the anthology was released in October 2008. Brunetti also illustrated the cover of comedian Patton Oswalt's album, My Weakness Is Strong. In 2012, Brunetti contributed to The Guardian's "Cartoonists on the world we live in" series.